Woe comes in the stamp of feet and the slide of scaled claws outside the window. When they march, the earth shakes in their wake. When they sing with a solitary voice, cities crumble. When they find the purpose that they lack, we must be aware, we must pray. Demons rouse the crowd, pray you never see them do so.

  -Warnings from the Holy Book of Rais

  I can’t keep the stupid grin off my face. Walking through the backyard with two heavy half-barrels of mulch held on each shoulder, I feel good. The weight of the load is awkward, no one was ever really meant to carry the half-barrels this way, but I find my strength is more than enough to make up for the imbalance. A snicker escapes me as I hop over the fence out back, my boots churning the dirt when I land. I remember the strength I saw Bali show all that time ago, sweating and straining as she cranked us up the side of the mountain. I finally have that, and it feels great.

  One of the half-barrels cracks as I slap it on the ground, the sound of splintering wood doing more to dispel my good mood than my mother’s voice shouting from inside the house. The second half-barrel is laid much more gently in front of the budding tomatoes in the back garden.

  Mom beckons me inside. No matter how many hands she has to help on the orchard, every single night she has cooked dinner for us, cooked even for the people staying late. She brings me inside, and I get washed up to help.

  I’ve never really had any kind of skill for cooking. I can do the simple things, knead dough, chop vegetables, toss things into a pot to stew, but flavor has always escaped me. I never really understood how much I missed family dinners before. I knew I missed them, but it wasn’t something I grasped until I got back home. These are the things I need to savor.

  I am set to cutting up the thawing pears we pulled out of the icebox in the cellar, the stuffing for the pie we prep tonight. The kitchen knife doesn’t quite cut it; I forgot to pull them out first thing this morning so they’re still a little frozen. My newest creation slides through the frozen fruit like I am cutting water–after I have wiped off all the mana-conducting oil of course. I go ahead and wash the pieces anyway, best to be sure.

  The migration in toward the house starts, the two of us watching through the window. Dad has hired six hands to help out with the expansion, good men, hard workers. A table set out in front of the house holds some supper that my mom prepped with dinner, just some cheese, slices of honeyed ham, and bread she baked that morning, one for each of the workers to carry off as they make their way back toward their lodgings. I know at least half will barter the meal for beer at Jeb’s, but I don’t hold it against them. They’re good men, as far as I have been able to tell.

  Corinth walks in with them. For the last week, he’s left his fancy clothes behind in his room upstairs, taking to the workman’s rough shirt and pants, one sleeve pinned up. Everyone likes him. It has something to do with his ability to do the work of three men, though I’m sure he could take care of all of it himself if he wanted. He doesn’t, doesn’t even use his magic to hurry things along. Before I went on my trip, before the trial, I don’t think I would have gotten it. Now, there is an appeal in using my hands, performing these tasks the way they were meant to be.

  The house creaks, announcing the big men as they make their way inside, moving right away to my dad’s lounge where they will have a smoke. The sun continues its long arc down and past the horizon, the stars coming out one by one to light up the sky. Warm scents invade the kitchen, mouthwatering temptations roll out of the oven each time my mother opens it to check on the green beans. I knead the dough, roll it, sugar the fruit, and assemble the pie while everything is prepared.

  Dad helps set the table, the big man smelling of smoke as he strolls into the room and noisily grabs plates and the new silverware, choosing to take a set for himself tonight. There is no prayer given over the food; it’s just something my family has never done, an oddity. It is only now that I start to realize why.

  How had that girl eating in this house, sleeping in my bed, and walking around town less than a year ago not seen the world for what it is? Where had her mind been?

  I’m told that my dish is good; Mom let me take care of the mashed potatoes. The compliments are nice, if obviously forced. The men at the table fail to recognize that when they compliment my mother’s cooking, they are specific, and mine are given general favors like, “This is good,” “Well done,” and “I can tell you worked hard.”

  I don’t mind it. The thought is really in the intention rather than the compliment, though I do note that I should at least get better at making easy dishes.

  Corinth stops between mouthfuls, not even looking up from his fork “You should get that,” he tells me, just moments before there comes a knock at the door. Some kind of a knowing smirk crosses his face as I get up and head over.

  It only occurs to me that I have no earthly idea what to expect as I open the door, but it certainly wasn’t this.

  “So, this is the right place,” Dovik says. He stands alone on the porch, hands in his pocket, the lamplight from inside barely illuminating him. “Some big men on the road said you lived here, but it seems too nice. I was imagining more of a cottage out in a prairie.”

  I step outside, closing the door behind me with a click. “What are you doing here?” I ask. At the barely-veiled offense on the man’s face, I try again. “Not that I’m not happy to see you, but it hasn’t been hardly two weeks.”

  “Almost three really,” he says, shrugging. “I don’t think we ever factored in travel time or not. The last month of my life has almost been complete traveling, experiencing the road-weariness of an adventurer with only a flying golden ship to call home.”

  “You brought my ship?”

  “How else was I going to get here?” He bends, looking in through the window at the dining room, where my parents peer back out at us. I grab his elbow and drag him aside just as he starts waving into the house. “Rude.”

  “Where are the others?” I ask.

  “Still in Mari,” he says with a sigh. “The dutchy, not the man,” he clarifies–needlessly I might add. “I can’t imagine that…No, never mind…gross. Really though, Charlene, I am pretty tired, and would love a home-cooked meal.”

  “It isn’t that I’m not happy to see you, but things were just starting to feel a little…normal.”

  “I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t need to,” he says, turning serious.

  “What happened?” Terrible thoughts already forming in my imagination, and I can’t help but match his sincerity.

  “No one is dead or anything,” he says, immediately arresting my greatest fears. “No one we know anyway. There are issues in Mari. They will be closing all of the borders soon, putting the Dutchy into lockdown to take care of the threat. So, if we are going to get you there to help, we need to leave soon.”

  “They are going to close the Dutchy? That’s possible?”

  “It is,” he says. He smiles, adopting his more arrogant air once more. For some reason, it helps put me at ease. “We will make it with plenty of time to spare, don’t worry about that. Seriously, I’ve only had road rations for the last five days. You should think of installing a stove in your ship or something.”

  “My parents are inside,” I tell him, squeezing his arm.

  Dovik looks down at my hand, smirking. “Then you should be glad that I am the one they are meeting first. Of all your friends, who is more well-mannered?”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Jess probably. At least I know she wouldn’t try anything.”

  “What could I possibly try?”

  I ignore his question, already heading back to the front door. “Take your boots off,” I tell him as I step back into the light. I lead him away toward the dining room, offering a brief introduction to my family for the man before walking in and returning to my seat. It is only once I am seated again do I realize that he still stands in the doorway.

  Dovik lingers there, his eyes glued to my brother. There is a flicker in his eyes as he stares not at my brother’s face, but his chest, like he is trying to look through him.

  “Yes?” Corinth asks, a bit of amusement in his voice.

  “Pardon,” Dovik replies, trying to bow and nod to my brother at the same time, just ending up looking awkward. “I don’t mean to intrude, lord.”

  “This isn’t my house,” Corinth says, pointing his thumb back to my father.

  “Quite right.” Dovik delivered a graceful bow to my father. “Mr. Devardem, you have a lovely home. I know you must be a great man by my acquaintance with your daughter.”

  My dad huffs at that, looking the fancily dressed man up and down. “Give us your name son, and find yourself a seat. There’s plenty to eat, and I am interested to find out how you know my daughter.”

  “My manners are atrocious tonight,” Dovik says. “And just after I promised Charlene that I would be charming and well-behaved. My name is Dovik Willian, sir. I am a member of your daughter’s adventuring team.”

  Before his lingering in the doorway can become awkward, Dovik folds his coat over his arm and sets it on the back of a chair, taking the empty one next to me.

  “I thought you said your brother was only second rank,” he whispers, masking the words by dragging his chair out.

  “That is my other brother,” I whisper back at him, pulling a plate from the table and handing it over. “This is Corinth. I told you about him.”

  “I thought you were joking.” Dovik takes his seat and the plate, looking extremely appreciative as I spoon out some food for him. All the while, Corinth sits across the table from us, smirking away.

  True to his word, Dovik is a perfect gentleman throughout the meal. He gets the flow of the general flattery, his compliments on my mother’s cooking very precise and heartfelt for all I can tell. He is incredibly respectful when it comes to speaking to my father and brother, my brother especially, and is quite liberal with his praise of me and how I handled myself in the trial without going into specifics.

  To my immense surprise, the man works his charms and my mother is just about ready to arrange our marriage by the time she brings out the pie. She tells me as much as the men retire back to the smoking lounge and she has me help with cleaning the table. Even though he never bragged about his family, my mother somehow smelled the wealth on him, and more than once she asks my intentions toward the man. I tell her the truth, that he is a friend, and woe to me for my honesty.

  He finds me eventually back out on the front porch, sitting in a rocker in the dark. The starlight overhead is more than enough for each of us to see the night by. There is a stagger in his step, and I know immediately that my brother had some fun in getting him tipsy before sending him back.

  Dovik falls into the rocker across from me, a corked and half-drunk bottle of amber brandy in his hand. “You have a good family,” he says.

  “I know. It makes me wonder why I was so determined to leave before. It isn’t as if I had anything I was running toward, but I just found myself running all the same.”

  He shrugs. “Sounds natural to me. I have a nice family too, but here I am, out in the middle of nowhere with a pretty girl on her family farm, thousands of miles from home.”

  “Aw, you think I’m pretty.”

  “Got eyes, don’t I?” Dovik fishes a knife out from the coat he has put back on and works at the cork. “Ready to show me around the farm, show me why you wanted to come back here so much?”

  I nod back to the inside of the house. “You already saw that.”

  “Humor me.”

  I huff a laugh, standing from my rocker and snatching the bottle from his hand as I walk past. “Stumble after, but keep up. The orchard is bigger than it used to be.”

  The gravel road out behind the house only extends out to the old barn. The stretch of chewed-up grass and dirt leading over to the new one is still forming into a proper path. I take him around the back of the two looming buildings, wandering out into the trees, naming them off for him as we pass the bottle back and forth. This place has gotten a lot bigger.

  I show off the small pond that Corinth made a few days ago, just a rough hole in the ground right now with a shallow layer of water down below. I show off my favorite hill, where you used to be able to see the entire orchard, but that isn’t true anymore. I’ll need to find a new favorite perch. We end up back at the barn, and I quietly show off the ponies, not that we can keep silent enough to not wake them up.

  Dovik is enchanted by the horses, asking hesitant permission to be allowed to pet them. His goofy grin as he runs his hand through Brenda’s mane makes him look his true age for a moment. Despite me telling him that there isn’t anything interesting, he wants to see the hold barn, and so I show him. He pushes himself to justify his curiosity, looking at ordinary tools like they were intricate pieces of enchantment, their purpose needing to be puzzled out.

  “Do you actually keep hay up there?” he asks, pointing to the loft at the end of the barn.

  “It’s called a hayloft,” I reply. I rattle the bottle, just about empty, and go ahead and finish it off. There isn’t even a tingle in my fingers at drinking nearly half a bottle of brandy. Maybe Corinth has something stronger. He should; I can only imagine that this resistance to alcohol far outpaces mine.

  “I knew it,” Dovik says, brushing off a blanket-covered bench and falling onto it.

  “There’s no hay up there.” I can’t help but laugh at the disappointed look on his face. “Again, this is an orchard, not a farm.”

  “Orchard girl doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

  Kicking over a chair of my own, I take a seat across from him. “Is it every bit as rustic and quaint as you hoped?”

  “In some ways,” he says. “Other ways, a bit different. I’m glad I came though.”

  “On that topic.” I scoot him out of the way, lifting the latch on the bench and rooting around inside. It is a bit surprising to find a bottle of wine deep inside in a rusted tin lockbox. Halford kept little stashes all over the place, thinking that no one else knew about them. I’m fairly certain that everyone does, but for whatever reason no one has cleaned this one up. I hand him the bottle, just a thumb’s width left at the bottom, and fall back into the old chair. “You should tell me why you came.”

  “I did tell you.” Dovik stares down into the bottle before sniffing at the opening. “I came to get you.”

  “Right, they’re closing the borders for Mari. You never explained why I should go there, and why we shouldn’t just go somewhere else.”

  “It would be a waste of an opportunity.” He takes a sip from the bottle, grimaces, and takes another swallow.

  “Sounds like a good place to start explaining.”

  “Beast tide,” he says. At my evident confusion, or maybe because he just likes the sound of his own voice, he continues. “A lot of monsters started attacking settlements all around the Dutchy. Not just your everyday sort of monsters either, but strong ones, dragged out from whatever lairs they usually keep to themselves in. Tides happen on occasion, but they aren’t all that common. The Duke is going to close down the Dutchy, make certain that none can enter from the outside, that nothing is able to enter really. Then, everyone that is capable of doing so will spend the next few months culling powerful monsters until everything is wiped clean.”

  “I thought beast tides were a myth, something that happened when a demon raises a legion of monsters to wage war on the world.”

  Dovik rolls his eyes. “There’s no such thing as demons. As for the tides, I don’t know much. Sometimes there is an intelligent monster that gathers an army of sorts. Sometimes there is a natural formation that makes everything go crazy. I’ve even heard that there are some natural treasures out there so powerful that every monster for hundreds of miles can’t help but try to get their claws on it. Not sure what we are dealing with here, but what I do know for certain is that there will be a lot of powerful monsters that need to be put down. Can you think of a better way for all of us to push ourselves toward the third rank?”

  “As far as I know, killing monsters is what we need to do.”

  “Exactly.” Dovik points the now empty bottle at me. “And we just so happen to have an in with a bonafide member of the Mari family. The Duke will probably kick most unaffiliated magicians and adventurers out of the Dutchy before the counterattack begins, but we have an opportunity to join in. Tell me, orchard girl, doesn’t that sound exactly like what we need right now?”

  I leave him in the silence following his words for a long moment as I mull it over. Following the trial, all I wanted to do was push myself to rank two. After that, I found myself a bit listless, dabbling in all sorts of things, trying to find a path that resonated with me. Enchantment is interesting, and I think that I am beginning to get a handle on what my new abilities are capable of, but Dovik is right; I need something external to push me along.

  Looking back at him, I nod. “That sounds exactly like what I need. When should we leave?”

  “First light,” he says. “We fly from here, right into the belly of the beast.”

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